“Anyways,” Lev exhaled, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m doing as fine as I can be. The break helped. Crafting is progressing too, though I’m a bit stumped about how to use barriers effectively. My constructs either fall short due to conductivity or are too brittle against third-threshold monsters. Kinetic energy is shaping up to be the missing key for a lot of my ideas, though channeling that through runes is going to take… a while.”
“All of that just sounds like experience to accumulate. What else?”
Leaning back in his seat, he continued. “Other than that? I’m starting to see more and more of why having teammates will be life-saving. Even if they can’t match me, a single strong helper would make a huge difference in my usual battles. It would also help to not be alone most of the time. Too much time to think stops being helpful after a certain point.”
Drakys turned to him at that, looking into his eyes, searching for what was going through Lev’s head. “Do you want them to come here earlier?”
“Nope,” Lev replied immediately. “The more experience they have under their belt, the better. We’re going towards the middle of the plains, right? I’m assuming there’s going to be a lot of fighting there. It wouldn’t do to have them arrive before letting them properly grow into their rapidly growing status.”
Drakys nodded approvingly. “They’re good kids, but still green. The same as you. Be careful and thorough.”
“You don’t need to tell me that twice.”
“With that out of the way,” the Exalted exhaled, fully turning to him. “We have one week to ourselves, during which I expect you to get a decent handle on Kinetic Energy manipulation and a skill to regulate mana flows into different runes, constructs, and your glaive.”
“… huh?”
“Prepare yourself, we spar in half an hour.”
****
Left with no choice, Lev erased all of his armor’s enchantments while requesting another hour to re-enchant it. The Exalted agreed, leaving him to his own devices in the bubble, vanishing in a blink after overtaking the bubble and creating an exit for a moment.
Picking up his jaw from the floor, Lev tried and failed to decipher whatever the hell just happened. There were no mental signs that his control was compromised. Giving up on that rather quickly, he pulled his attention back to the rune collection from the tournament rewards.
Let’s see, he hummed, flipping to the second Controlled Enhancement Formation. Dedicated runes to elemental imbuement, as well as easier mana flow through additional supportive runes. Kinetic Energy likely counts, though there are only specific runes for Fire and Lightning, the two elements I used excessively back then.
The plan was both simple, and also not very simple. So far, layering enchantments had served him well. It didn’t just allow him to isolate complex formations, but also let him connect them to other runic effects more easily by melding layers at specific points. Now more than ever, Augmented Carving made the process highly effective, giving his enchanting another sizable boost.
On the armor, he had to soften any extra layers, as well as plating and other such additions at certain points. That posed a durability risk if luck wasn’t on his side, though the loss in durability was minor. He would have to be more mindful of such soft spots.
Combining it all together, however, was a tall hurdle. Fireball and Lightning Bolt formations on his arm, Flameforged Constitution and Controlled Enhancement on the torso, Shroud of Darkness on an extra layer for emergency escapes, another smaller layer for connecting any additional plating, and enchantments for kinetic absorption, hardening, and the subsequent conversion.
Safe to say, his armor was probably going to be akin to a Superior armor by the time he was done.
Actually… can I identify my armor?
How had he never tried that?
Determined to do so later, Lev began carving. Layer by layer, rune after rune, enchantments formed. Willpower was infused all the while, the expenditure marginal. It merely served as a medium to peer deeper into the runes, and they revealed something amazing.
Two different passives bloomed on his armor. The resonance was so strong between the skill and the runes that everything was buffed significantly, telling him in no uncertain terms just how potent it was now.
A few minutes before the allotted time, he did the final checks, quite satisfied. Everything was as harmonized as he could possibly make it right now, and if he was being honest, the result was also outstanding. Identify proved that.
[
Mantle of the Mage - Superior
]
The enchantments were not listed. Lev didn’t know why, but he didn’t care that much. He had personally enchanted the armor, after all.
First things first, the armor was actually considered Superior rarity. That was more than a little mind-blowing. Secondly, the two passive enchantments were also surprising. The first was related to mana flow. Conductivity was not the target, but instead the ease of manipulating all mana inside the armor was.
The second passive enchantment was for absorption, for whatever reason. It aided the conversion of the absorbed force and accelerated the whole process, further improving the effectiveness of his Perception for runes.
So… technically, I have three Superior pieces of equipment on me right now? Huh…
He couldn’t imagine anyone other than perhaps Hakim having that many. Masters who were seriously pushing for Exalted rarely had Epic items on them. Then there was Lev, rocking far more than what most of his level had access to. Life was truly strange.
Drakys appeared exactly an hour and a half later, scaring the soul out of Lev. The man quite literally materialized inside the bubble.
“Was that teleportation?”
The Exalted smirked slightly. “I wish, but no. I phased through the bubble.”
That’s even worse!
Suddenly harboring far more questions than before, Lev didn’t even get a chance to speak before the bubble started moving. Lightning Surge came alive, and it took a moment for him to realize that the converted mana came from Stargazer’s converter. Such was the Exalted’s control that not even a single drop leaked. It was also hidden from his Perception, and the more he thought about it, the more likely it was that he was allowed to see it by Drakys.
For several long minutes, during which the bubble’s speed accelerated beyond what he could manage by himself, Lev kept his eyes closed. Drakys was letting him observe hints of how to empower his barriers further, revealing a few handy tips about how to strengthen the solidified mana.
He is sacrificing a bit of durability by softening the barriers, but the actual result is tougher. How?
The only reason he could come up with was rigidity. Too hard, and the material turned brittle. He wasn’t sure if that was entirely true, only that brittleness was related to rigidity in some way.
Of course, his barriers weren’t unoptimized. The change in hardness was minor, combined with several more adjustments that Lev couldn’t perceive. There was more to the puzzle that he had to figure out on his own. Testing the effects of a more elastic shield was on his agenda anyway, so the tip was a timely reminder.
A few minutes later, the bubble suddenly plummeted. Lev hastily took over, arresting the descent and cautiously looking around.
Only grass greeted him.
“You can ask,” Drakys remarked, phasing through the bubble once again. Lev was reasonably certain that the man was just showing off now.
“Where is this?” he asked, following outside.
“Somewhere,” the Exalted shrugged. “Just a random patch I enchanted after confirming there was nothing dangerous in the area.”
Knowing what was coming, Lev didn’t dawdle and immediately powered up his armor to half its maximum. The draw was considerable, eating his entire mana regeneration and some from his pool.
He adopted a stance just in time for his Perception to be put to the test. A blob of mana, invisible and only slightly noticeable, rushed towards his chest.
Too curious, he didn’t dodge. Instead, he copied it. Willpower infused an orb of pure mana, given the sole command to disrupt the attack coming towards him.
To his immense surprise, the blob and orb collided almost like solid objects, the latter way larger and densely packed. Neither side gave way, and both of them just unfurled within a second.
“That was so grossly overkill and inefficient,” Drakys remarked, shaking his head slightly. “And don’t block the next one.”
Again, a blob flew at him. Stargazer’s blade passed through it ineffectually. The mana landed on his chest, and suddenly, the world bent.
Lev flew through the air at an incredible speed, unharmed yet caught completely unaware. Trying to stop himself resulted in his efforts getting completely thwarted, and if anything, his flight became even faster.
Realization struck him. Instead of manipulating his armor, he focused on the absorption runes. A steady stream of mana was produced as a result of the kinetic energy absorption and conversion, and with a mental command, he cut off the connection between the two.
Raw kinetic energy was stored inside the runes. The speed at which he was flying instantly filled up the buffers, pushing the formations to destabilization within seconds.
With an effort of will, he grabbed a tiny chunk of kinetic mana and imbued it into his armor. The task became even more difficult when the advanced mana type immediately threatened to slip out of control, demanding a movement to empower.
He directed it towards stopping his flight, and this time, there was no resistance. The negligible amount of kinetic mana was immediately consumed, not slowing him down at all.
Then the formations on his armor exploded, melting all external layers and severely damaging the base skill. Without the Epic bodysuit, Lev was especially vulnerable underneath. The bodysuit was far too damaged to be viable after escaping the Stormfury and was summarily discarded after he returned.
Wrapping himself in a cocoon of barrier threads, he dismissed the layers with absorption enchantments, dispersing all absorbed kinetic mana into thin air. His flight continued while he repaired his armor, coming to a sudden stop when Drakys put a hand on his shoulder.
“Reform the armor and only enchant it for absorption and durability. Discard the rest.”
Doing as he was told, Lev soundlessly carved his armor for the next few minutes. Drakys didn’t wait for him to give a signal, opting to send another blob of mana his way the moment the armor was done.
Once again, he was launched in a straight line, probably still in the confines of the enchanted region. His next attempt at halting his momentum went better. Kinetic mana was still just as stubborn as before, requiring him to drag away chunks of it from the absorption formation.
Flameforged Constitution and overloading his armor provided it with enough conductivity to transfer kinetic energy throughout, but it was far from enough.
Even with the much larger buffers due to the extra space from the lack of other formations, his sheer speed easily overwhelmed the runes.
Ten seconds later, Drakys stopped him when the formations ceased to exist, forced him to recreate the damaged armor, then tossed him in a random direction once more.
Lev didn’t make a peep during all of that, astonished at how effective the stupid exercise was at making him perceive kinetic mana better. All of his focus was on the runes that absorbed his speed and converted it into mana.
Oblivious, he made no attempts to protect himself when he slammed into a stone wall. Air burst out of his lungs, mixed with blood, and the armor cracked in multiple places. His right knee also broke from the direct collision at an awkward angle, joining a lot of torn muscles in a cacophony of pain.
Summoning Stargazer from his ring to heal the injuries, he set himself upright by manipulating his armor. There was no point in complaining. If anything, he wanted to kick himself for getting so engrossed in the new task that he couldn’t even notice a single obstacle.
Standing up, he gritted his teeth and changed his shirt while wiping his face to clean the blood. Giving Drakys a nod, the training began anew with him shooting North at speeds too fast to control.
Kinetic mana resisted his control, the two previous tries not making it any easier. Tiny chunk by chunk, he dragged the unruly mana outside of the runes and imbued it into his armor.
While he did that, Lev freed up some part of his mind to keep an eye on any obstacles, and another small part to observe how Drakys made the exercise possible.
Willpower had always been a mystery, shrouded in so many theories that there were basically no concrete answers about its existence.
The same force was rumored to be the key to fighting effectively at higher ranks, something Lev could personally attest to. What he had never expected, however, was a simple blob of mana to counter everything but his attempts at stopping himself with kinetic mana. Somehow, the tiny, unnoticeable bit of the Exalted’s willpower scanned his skills, allowed a certain manipulation, and blocked the rest like a steel wall.
How that was even possible, Lev had no idea. It revealed just how far he had to go before even creating a tenth of that effect. He didn’t even know where to begin-
Thoughts halted when he noticed a stone ball speeding towards his face. Training and experience borne of relentless battles kicked in. Kinetic energy was forcefully ripped from the runes in larger amounts, all of it channeled into his right arm.
Dance of the Elements was a glaive skill, but it still offered minor benefits without the weapon. It guided the kinetic mana, imbuing the limb by concentrating most of it in the hand.
In one smooth motion, his arm moved entirely through kinetic energy, passing the test Drakys’s restriction had set for him to deflect the ball away from his face.
[
Expeditious Empowerment has reached 4th Level 8
]
Of course, the moment he slapped it away, three more replaced it.